Apparently these are traditional – can’t say I’d ever heard of them. I made them to take round a friend’s house for tea and they certainly didn’t last like. Like a scone, but more like bread.
Stir the dry ingredients together and add the milk and butter. Bring it together and then knead for about ten minutes into a smooth, elastic dough. Cover and leave for an hour or so until doubled in size.
Punch the dough down and cut into 12 pieces. Roll into balls and place on a greased baking tray. Preheat the oven to 200°C and leave the balls to prove for 20 mins.
Bake for 10 – 15 minutes until risen and golden. Allow to cool, dust with icing sugar, slice and stuff with jam and cream.
Paul Hollywood. The man of the moment. Overnight success many years in the making. I remember watching him opposite Jeni Barnett on Great Food Live a decade ago and he was clearly a font of all bready knowledge. His patented double-claw-rolling-out-dough technique was well practiced even back then.
Post Bake-Off, he is fronting the most appropriately titled vehicle for him: Bread. Blogs are awash with how decent his recipes are; and his myth-busting tips are pure gold. Such as: you don’t need warm water for yeast to prove dough. In fact tap-cold water is better as the slower growth will develop the flavour. Genius.
I have a handy recipe for garlic bread which I really like but it’s a bit more suited to a barbecue. His garlic bread involves folding roasted garlic cloves into baguette dough, and as you might imagine this creates the most amazing smell whilst baking. Mine didn’t even get the chance to get bathed in mozzarella like his before being scoffed; maybe next time!
Continuing my series on decent grub on a budget, here’s a pasta bake dish with lots going on. It’s the breadcrumb topping that makes it! This was intended to have a white sauce made with milk but I ran out, so instead I went for a velouté version made with stock.
(PS. I’ve listed ingredients for 1 but the version above serves 2 – 3, in case you’re wondering why yours is smaller!).
Approximate cost for main ingredients, excludes storecupboard ingredients (prices from Tesco.com 7th Oct 2012): £1.91
Garlic mushroom and broccoli bake (serves 1):
100g penne or other shape pasta
100g mushrooms, sliced
1 head of broccoli, separated into florets
1 rasher of smoked bacon
1 slice of bread, preferably yesterday’s
20g butter
20g flour
1 clove garlic
500ml hot chicken stock
Get a large pan of salted water on to boil over a high heat and preheat the oven to 200°C. Get a smaller pan on a medium heat and get a baking dish ready.
Add the pasta to the water. Add the butter to the smaller pan and once melted whisk in the flour to combine to a gloopy paste. Crush in the garlic and allow it to cook for a couple of minutes. Add all the stock, whisking all the time.
Add the mushrooms and veg to the pasta water and then return to whisking your sauce. Keep whisking until it resembles thick, smooth custard. At this point you should check to see whether the sauce needs salt or pepper.
After the vegetables have cooked for five minutes drain these along with the pasta and combine with the sauce in your baking dish. If you have a food processor blitz the torn-up bread and bacon together to breadcrumbs, if not lay both on a chopping board and rock your knife over the lot of it to dice as small as possible. Scatter these breadcrumbs in a single layer over the pasta bake, and pop in the oven for about 15 mins until the breadcrumbs are golden and the bacon pieces are cooked.
Regardless, it’s the best loaf of bread I’ve ever made. Though it was almost never meant to be.
I made everything up, slathered it in the rice flour goop and slammed it in the oven. I popped back twenty minutes later and… nothing had happened. The dough was still ghostly-white and tellingly, I could take it out of the oven with no gloves. My oven had packed up.
Few things are more depressing to a food blogger than the oven dying. All those things you can prepare, make, bake and cook are just cut out. Luckily I’m not completely paralysed, I have another oven but it is teeny-tiny – it’s not tall enough to roast a whole chicken if that gives you an idea of the size.
Just big enough however to hold this loaf on it’s baking tray. So an hour later than expected, the bread was hacked apart and devoured in seconds. Delicious… if you have a working oven. PS. it looks like wayyyy too much syrupy paste but just keep slathering it on for a crunchy, crackly skin.
Mix the flour, yeast, salt and sugar together and keep adding water until you get a sticky dough. Knead for ten minutes until the dough turns smooth and elastic. Oil some clingfilm and wrap the dough in it. Leave to rise for an hour.
While it proves mix the topping ingredients together with a little water to make a thick paste. Turn the dough out on to a baking tray dusted with flour. Preheat the oven (ha ha) to 200°C. Baste the loaf liberally with the topping and bake for about 25 minutes, until the top is all crackly and the underside sounds hollow when tapped.
